John Butler
He’s 20 years into his career and Australia’s biggest independent artist, but that doesn’t mean John Butler is afraid to step into the unknown as a musician. he guides us on his inspiring journey to new album, Home, via India, Ipad demos and stargazing
Even for an artist whose willingness to explore genres transcended the description of ‘roots’ musician long ago, Home marked a dramatic change in the studio for John Butler – largely without his band. “It just wasn’t flowing the way I wanted it to flow,” he explains to us. “I found that around the second session I was way too sensitive to everything and the more people that were around, the more complicated it seemed to get. And not because of them, because of me. I just need to really simplify everything to get out this idea that I had.” As we’ll find out, technology played its part too.
“A lot of my demos are pretty much how the album is, though recorded more sub par! So I really wanted to make sure all those ideas came out. I was feeling like I was asking people to play what I wanted them to, as opposed to a creative process. And I was aware of that and a little paranoid about it I guess. But I needed to make the music I needed to make, so the best way to do that was by myself with a producer. I would have done it by myself but I didn’t know how to work all the gear. So I needed to work with someone who I really trusted. I just needed to get everything that I had out. But a lot of it was how it was pre-produced on my ipad…”
Apple Source How Garageband on the ipad played a massive part in Home’s creation
“The ipad was the biggest change in terms of gear for this album. That was the thing that really allowed me to create something new. It was Garageband, that’s how [demoed] did the whole album. I bought this ipad only for Garageband. I’m a guitarist but I have so many ideas in my head all the time. I use it to practise with too. It’s been the biggest tool for me and has enabled me to create the new worlds I’m going to go and play guitar over. The coolest thing is I’ll have a beat in my head and I won’t have to wait for two months to be in a studio or soundcheck with G [Grant Gerathy, drums]. I can be making the beats now. I play a lot of beats in the shower on the wall and the ipad helped me pre-produce the things I’m hearing in my head. As a simple musician luddite like myself, I can do things really quickly!
“As far as coming into the studio with formed ideas, this album was more so that way than any before. That’s why I probably had everyone stand back before I was ready. Because I had to get those ideas out first. It was really quite a specific vision and I think it made the flavour of this album the way it is. And a lot of the sounds on the album come from the ipad. There’s a whole bunch of synthesisers I haven’t been able to get anywhere else.”
Obey Your Mas ter Serving the song can sometimes mean questioning your preconceptions as a player
“I wrote the song Faith camping with my son. He had gone to sleep and I was just playing, looking up at the stars and it came out. I continued writing the song over the next few weeks and I had a solo totally worked out [John picks up his guitar and plays us a very different bluegrass-style fingerstyle solo] and I had practised it heaps. I don’t usually practise solos but I’d sat on the song for so long and I’d really worked out how I was going to do this double thumbing technique. But it was like the song, being the boss, was saying, ‘Boring!’ The song was so over it. It was a boring solo… So by the end of doing 15 takes of that one technique I started doing that technique instead, which is on the album; that psychedelic hammer on, hammer off Schism- y kind of playing. Because the song was played to a click I was able to get a delay right in time and ride the delays in and out on the solo. And it totally made sense for the song at the end of the day.
“I’m not afraid to fight my own preconceived ideas; I have to let my instinct prevail. Because with my own preconceived ideas of being a guitarist and a human being, I might think things should be a certain way. But I’m not in charge, nor should I be. I work for the song and the song knows best… and it’s not the double thumbing thing I’ve been really wanting to do for a long time. Because that’s all about me. It’s not for the song. That’s me and my technique and it’s boring. Technique is awesome if it serves the song. It’s all there to serve. Sometimes we can let our egos ruin a song with technique.”
Lightning In A Bottle Song ideas can drift away if you don’t use them, with rare exceptions…
“Most songs leave. Elizabeth Gilbert is an author and she wrote a book called Bigmagic, it’s a great book for anybody who is slightly creative. She says ideas will come to you and if you don’t help them come to life they’re like, ‘See you later’ and they’re off to someone else. When you have a good idea and you don’t do anything about it and you see it pop up somewhere else and you say, ‘Hey I had that idea!’ Well you had that idea and you did nothing about it. So I would have expected the riff for Just Call to do that. But I was the only person who was going to help it. It’s like that Bruce Willis film with, ‘I see dead people’, or the Whoopi Goldberg movie where she sees dead people. I guess that song could only live through me, but I’m surprised it didn’t piss off! I didn’t forget it and I forget hundreds of songs. I do record ideas but I’ve forgotten half of what I’ve recorded and then I’ve forgotten half of them before I hit the recorder. There’s something about that song that stuck.”
Yoda and Skywalker How John Butler first fused the electric and acoustic worlds in his sound
“It came on really quickly when I think about it. When I was busking I always went through an amp and then I’d go to play these gigs and think, ‘This isn’t quite right.’ Then I’d have an amp and DI
“ideas come; if you don’t help them come to life, they’re off”
going at the same time so it was kind of a clean sound. But the real moment, a crossroads moment, was Jeff Lang. An amazing guitarist and singer-songwriter. He’d have his acoustic going off in one direction then he’d drive in this distorted slide amp on the other side. I was opening up for him one night and I watched him and his foot and my mind was fucking blown. I remember going up to him as a hopeful young Skywalker going, ‘Yoda… can I do that?’ And I asked him, ‘That thing with the volume pedal, can I do that?’ And he looked at me like, ‘Sure you can do it, no one is stopping you.’ And I never looked back. All the effects and all the bullshit aside; an acoustic pickup into a DI, preferably a magnetic pickup, that goes straight out to a PA. Then [the piezo] goes to a distortion pedal and a volume pedal into an amp. It changed everything. It’s like the song Faith – it allowed me to go from blues, country folk fingerpicking to distorted, psychedelic flanger, delay in one fluid motion. And for me, not being a purist, that was all my world. I could do the bluegrass banjo picking I love and then just rip into metal – awesome!”
Same Difference The music industry has changed, but John says the core challenges for making yourself heard are the same as always
“The biggest challenges now are the same challenges as always. First: to write a good song. Second: work your ass off. Third: to get people’s attention. You can get people’s attention easier nowadays but there’s so much data it becomes as hard as ever. You used to be able to put an ad out in a newspaper but nobody buys the newspaper anymore. It’s easier to get an ad out but how do you get people to see it? A great colleague of ours, and I don’t where she got this from, said that the definition of luck is when preparedness meets opportunity. And so I think as an artist you have to just keep on practising your craft... Doing it often and working on how to write a good song. And if you do that, when the opportunity arises you’ll be prepared. And that’s what luck is. Work your ass off, don’t expect anything for free. There’s a lot of really talented people out there who deserve just as much attention as you. If there is a bit of luck involved and someone is at that show, whether the BBC or anyone else, hopefully, you’ll be prepared enough for that opportunity.”